Get the books ready for a corporate year end
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Confirm the financial year-end date, reconcile the accounts and list unresolved items. Agree with the tax preparer which reports and supporting records they need.
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Confirm the period and the handoff
Use the corporation’s financial year-end date when collecting statements and reports. Do not assume it is December 31. Agree a records handoff date with the tax preparer and identify who handles any correcting entries. Filing and payment deadlines depend on the return and the business; confirm those separately.
Prepare the year-end records
Explain transactions involving owners
Mark business purchases paid personally and amounts the company paid on an owner’s behalf. Keep supporting documents and a clear explanation. Do not choose a salary, dividend or shareholder-loan treatment just to make an unexplained balance disappear. Raise it with the person responsible for the tax work.
Keep an open-items list
A concise list of missing invoices, disputed balances and uncertain transactions is more useful than silently treating everything as resolved. Agree who will answer each question and when. If the books are several months behind, a catch-up engagement may need to happen before the year-end handoff.
Bring final adjustments back into the books
Ask for the final adjusting entries and agree who posts them. Then compare the opening balances for the next year with the finalized year-end figures. Keep the final reports with the working records so next year does not start from an outdated version.
When is my corporate year end?
Whatever date your corporation chose, which is often not December 31. Collect statements and reports to that date. Filing and payment deadlines run from it and differ from each other, so confirm both against your own year end rather than assuming a calendar year.
What does my tax preparer actually need from the books?
Completed reconciliations through year end, a year-end trial balance and general ledger, unpaid invoices and bills at the reporting date, loan balances, equipment purchases and disposals, payroll summaries, sales-tax returns already recorded, and explanations of every transaction involving an owner.
What do I do about money I took out of the company?
Document it and hand it over with an explanation — do not pick a salary, dividend or shareholder-loan treatment yourself to clear an unexplained balance. How it is treated is a tax decision for whoever prepares the return, and the wrong guess is expensive to unwind.
What happens to the adjusting entries afterwards?
Ask for them and agree who posts them into the books. Then check that next year opens on the finalized figures. Skipping this is why a second year sometimes starts from balances that no longer match the filed statements.
Monthly bookkeeping and corporate tax filing
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